welsh

: Link can't take a welsh, so he looks around for a way to get his dough

verb

To default on or evade an obligation, esp paying a gambling debt: Say, are you going to welsh on me?/ Some American officials feel that the Syrians welshed on their promise(1857+)

[apparently fr the same bigoted stereotype of the Welsh reflected in the English nursery rhyme ''Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,'' although perhaps a borrowing of German Welsch, ''foreigner'']

The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.Cite This Source